Fight Club Movie vs. Book
Even considering the complicated format of the book, David Fincher managed to almost perfectly illustrate the novel Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk, in his movie of the same name. Although tempting to compare a book and its film counterpart on even grounds, as a substitute of one another, the tools used to create each one differ greatly and thus should be evaluated on a thematic level. While the reading audience has the chance to reread, and absorb the themes in layers, the other audience is seeing the piece as a whole, where the director has only a split second to have the same effect as the author had possibly made in multiple descriptive paragraphs.
David Fincher, the director of the film Fight Club, which was released in 1999 and nominated for an Oscar in 2000, was working with a very recent novel, written by Chuck Palahniuk in 1995. The audience, which was mostly North American, was relatively similar for both pieces – partially desensitized to violence through Hollywood movies and the media, over stimulated by the overwhelming stream of information available over the internet and materialistic due to the booming economy. The director therefore only had to consider the restrictions of the visual aspect of the film and the film-going demographic. Fincher chose to follow the book almost as a script, and allowed the author to be involved in the process, however Palahniuk was mesmerized by the work of the director and chose to have very little say in the process.
The flow and style of the plot line is almost identical, with a few scenes shortened to adhere to an acceptable two hours and many of the characters in the movie are a mirror reflection of their respective descriptions in the novel. The dialogue is adopted as a script and the only three major differences between the two stories are the narrator’s initial meeting of Tyler Durden, his final separation with Tyler Durden, and the concluding scene.
The similarities between the storylines are extensive. The
David Fincher, the director of the film Fight Club, which was released in 1999 and nominated for an Oscar in 2000, was working with a very recent novel, written by Chuck Palahniuk in 1995. The audience, which was mostly North American, was relatively similar for both pieces – partially desensitized to violence through Hollywood movies and the media, over stimulated by the overwhelming stream of information available over the internet and materialistic due to the booming economy. The director therefore only had to consider the restrictions of the visual aspect of the film and the film-going demographic. Fincher chose to follow the book almost as a script, and allowed the author to be involved in the process, however Palahniuk was mesmerized by the work of the director and chose to have very little say in the process.
The flow and style of the plot line is almost identical, with a few scenes shortened to adhere to an acceptable two hours and many of the characters in the movie are a mirror reflection of their respective descriptions in the novel. The dialogue is adopted as a script and the only three major differences between the two stories are the narrator’s initial meeting of Tyler Durden, his final separation with Tyler Durden, and the concluding scene.
The similarities between the storylines are extensive. The